What Walker Kessler, Keyonte George need more of during 2024-25 season

While the Utah Jazz have made it clear that the priority this season is developing the young players on the roster, that isn’t going to look the same for everyone.
There’s still a lot to learn about where a lot of these guys are as a baseline or starting point. But Walker Kessler, heading into his third NBA season, and Keyonte George, starting his second year, have more game reps under their belt than some of the other young players on the team.
As such, there is going to be more expected of both Kessler and George and their development is going to end up being a bit more nuanced than that of Taylor Hendricks, Brice Sensabaugh, Cody Williams, Isaiah Collier and Kyle Filipowski.
“The biggest overall thing for both of them is going to be their consistency,” Jazz coach Will Hardy said. “I’m not overly focused on what their “best” is … I’m more interested in what is the baseline that we can expect from both players on a night-to-night basis, because that’s what this league is.
“Even the top players, they’ll have big outbursts and a massive game. But, what separates the best players in this league from everybody else is that their floor is so much higher, their average game is so much higher. For Keyonte and Walker, they each have experience under their belt now, and for them to step into bigger roles for our team and our organization now and moving forward, it’s going to be about their consistency.”
For both players, the focus starts on the defensive end. Prior to the start of Summer League, Hardy had messages displayed on white boards and on the walls at the practice facility that outlined the Jazz’s poor defensive numbers from the 2023-24 season. So the players on the summer roster that were on last season’s Jazz team were consistently reminded that they were bottom-dwellers of the league when it came to defensive metrics.
For the incoming rookies, the message was clear: This is not who we want to be.
“Shame is a great motivator,” Hardy said. “It’s on everybody, and they recognize they’re a big part of that. We recognize we’re a part of that. That was in no way us blaming (the players). It’s just like, let’s all remember what we need to focus on … I’m happy with where the group’s at right now. I think their mindset and their intensity and understanding has really grown throughout the summer.”
As the season progresses, the goals and what success looks like for each player will change and adapt, but Hardy wants for George and Kessler to use the early days of the 2024-25 season to find the things that they can do in every game that are effective and sustainable.
“It’s not just how many points you score, how many rebounds you get, how many blocks you get,” Hardy said. “A lot of it is your poise, your mental and emotional approach to every game … I think both of those guys understand that we’re seeking a higher level of consistency from both of them.
“There’s obviously plenty of technical basketball things that they’ve been working on that we want to see improvement, but those all feed into that just general consistency of their approach and their performance each night.”